Abstract
Despite the creation of WTO in 1995, forming FTAs has become an emerging trend of worldwide trade since the late 1990s. South Korea was quite early to pursue FTAs, however, it fell behind its Asian neighbours as its FTA negotiations with Chile dragged on for years. The situation was further worsened by a rising China and accelerating economic integration in the East Asian region. Roh Moo Hyun government thus decided to take a bold initiative to sign FTA with US. In this paper, the author intends to first explain why FTA is more popular than WTO since the late 1990s, then analyze South Korea's FTA strategy as a case study by first examining the evolution of its FTA policy, then exploring motivations behind Seoul's decision for initiating the FTA negotiations with the US, assessing the results of their FTA negotiations versus South Korean motivations, and finally the implications of the deal on South Korea and Northeast Asia.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.